


Parched

by AmeliaIsmills



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 08:43:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8137633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmeliaIsmills/pseuds/AmeliaIsmills
Summary: This was started for a prompt challenge, but went double the world limit. 
  Rodney was trapped on a world of molten lava, heat, and death. He wished he'd been able to say goodbye.





	

Title: Parched

Author: Amelia Ismill

Fandom: SGA

Characters: Rodney McKay, John Sheppard, Ronon, Teyla, other’s mentioned

Genre: Slash 

Word Count: 2,071

Warning: No beta. 

 

The night sky seemed as if every star in it was bursting into a thousand flames all at once and reigning down onto a no longer unsuspecting world. At first the screams had been deafening, a million thoughts of pain and suffering all at once. Now, they dwindled off in a way that was even more devastating than the litany of voices. 

The heat was quickly becoming unbearable, but Rodney did not stop working even though he felt more parched than he had ever been before. He hissed as his fingers brushed the hot metal that had once been a part of the generator pushing power into the hovel he’d been shoved into, trying desperately to keep the place cool enough to survive. The entire thing had crashed not long after the first quakes started and a mere five hours before the attack had begun in earnest. 

Rodney snorted at his thoughts and brushed the sparse hair across his forehead back, the sweat seeming almost chilled even as his body ran hot. You couldn’t really call it an attack, more like recompense for stupidity. He’d told the people of this planet more than nine months ago that they needed to prepare. It had been a year since he’d been wrenched from his tent during a visit to one of Atlantis’s science missions and pushed through a gate onto this hot hell hole of a world. 

He’d been disoriented at first and extremely argumentative and the locals had quickly taken to beating the shit out of him till he learned to keep his mouth shut long enough to figure out what it was they wanted from him. 

A bomb. A stupid bomb to kill the stupid people that lived on the other half of the dust ridden, plague of a planet. Just once Rodney would have liked to have been kidnapped for a more precarious reason than bigotry, racism, and a general lack of concern about life around them. He had been confused about how the two peoples had managed to create a full fledge war started ages before of ancient resentments long forgotten when the wraith were actively destroying populations larger than a hunter and gatherer tribe as soon as they were discovered. 

It has perplexed him until his third month of really bad food, daily beatings, and a perpetual sunburn. It wasn’t anything particularly dramatic or even interesting, he’d just been pretending to type in code to the primitive hardware they’d given him when he’d overheard his jailer say he was due to the breeding planet. 

Rodney had suddenly started to go back through his days and the very few people he’d actually seen. All men and nobody under the age of thirty. So, he started to pay extra attention to the conversations that happened around him. It wasn’t long before he was presented with the truth about how women and children were kept off planet on another world, apparently both sides sent their families there and that planet was considered a no kill zone. Then when the women reached beyond a breeding age they were sent off to yet another planet where the wraith often came and fed in return for leaving the warring world alone. 

Rodney was horrified. When he asked his guard why just the older women were sent and not the men, the look he got was one of confusion. Like the barbarian couldn’t even begin to comprehend why he’d ask that question. 

So, Rodney began to pay more attention to actually blowing the whole planet up instead of just a method of escape. He couldn’t figure out whether he was actually disappointed when he found the fault line that was already naturally tearing the planet apart. He’d even tried to tell his captors, simply because he figured he could blow them all up just as easily on a planet that wasn’t breaking apart at the seams and quickly becoming hotter than molten lava. Rodney ascertained from more random conversations with the ever changing idiots keeping him captive that already over half of the local fauna had become extinct in the last three decades. 

The fools still didn’t believe him when he told them that their war had no more merit, that they would all be dead within another year, probably much sooner from the elements. They kept not believing him until the first volcano erupted and half of the southern continent split in two, a chasm reaching hundreds of mile beneath the planet surface, a vast dark emptiness. Three of their major outposts had been destroyed and evacuations began through the gate, which was kept in a neutral area. That was until the idiots didn’t listen when he told them to move it someone bit more stable and the entire gate system was covered in molten lava from a no longer dormant volcano. 

This was the point that Rodney quit trying to convince anyone of anything and started to put together the pieces of the random bits of equipment he’d been messing with for the last year in a seemingly random, but completely planned and manipulated manner. He’d had the deep space relay signal pumping for eight months in the general direction of what he was pretty sure was the most recent path the Daedulas took after dropping out of hyperspace. At least it had been the most recent path a year before. 

A loud bang at least a mile away jerked Rodney’s attention out of his memories and he grimaced as he realized he’d completely spaced out. Absently he reached towards the small bag of a bread like food he’d managed to locate in the chaos and confusion of everything going to hell and back. He shoved the last of the dried rations into his mouth and almost choked as he forced the food down without water. That he was completely out of and there was no more time to try and locate more. 

Rodney groaned as lights swirled in front of his eyes and his legs started to buckle. He forced himself back up to look at the random pieces he’d plied together. He knew he was almost out of time and with one last burst of energy he pressed the last button to send the transmission he’d been preparing for the last three months. The transmission he realized he was going to have to put together when he realized he wasn’t going to make it off this planet alive. 

The transmission to say goodbye to the only real family, outside of Jeannie, he had ever really known. Rodney felt something clench inside him and he finally let himself to collapse to the ground. 

He wished he could have one more drink of water again, he’d never complain again about being thirsty if he could have just one more gulp. He wanted to hear Ronan make fun of him and hear Teyla chiding the entire team about their eating habits. He wanted to berate his team’s one more time and maybe tell a few of them they were brilliant. He wanted to come up with one more world saving miracle, preferably one that would save him again. He wanted to see John one more time...wanted to tell him... Rodney felt himself getting drowsy and it felt like his insides were going to boil through him. 

He wanted to hear John’s voice one more time…

“Rodney!” 

Great, Rodney thought, Now I’m hallucinating. At least I can tell him I’m in love with him, even if it’s pretend.

He tried to force his eyes open to see if he was actually full on delusional and if John would actually be in front of him, but his eyes were caked shut and it suddenly seemed as if his body was moving. Maybe, he should have paid more attention when Elizabeth talked about ascension. That way he’d at least come back. 

“Rodney, shut up! You are not hallucinating, you are not ascending, and you are not dying. I need you to hang on for five more minutes!” John’s voice sounded quite insistent, but considering the possibility of him finding the planet Rodney was on, not to mention Rodney himself, Rodney refused to give into the delusion. He’d run the numbers a million times to determine the likelihood of the Daedulas picking up on the transmission in enough time to reach him. The statistics were like ten percent to five million percent and not in in his favor.

The earth seemed to rumble all around him again and Rodney wondered if he was going to fall straight through the planet all the way to the other side. He heard what sounded like a snort around him and then a bunch of gibberish that sounded like John giving orders to make sure to beam directly into the infirmary and then nothing. 

Rodney wondered if he was dead. It was so quiet. 

Then suddenly noise was pressing in around him in a litany of familiar and unfamiliar voices and he felt something screw loose inside of him and then he knew nothing else. 

Rodney came to term with the fact he was still alive and not hallucinating when he started swimming into consciousness because he heard Kavanaugh’s voice and there was no way in hell his subconscious would put Kavanaugh in any type of delusional world of his choosing. 

“I believe he’s coming to,” Teyla’s voice was like musical chimes, Rodney mused as he forced his eyes open. They still felt heavy, but he realized with some relief that it didn’t feel as if he was peeling apart super glue to open them again. 

“Carson has been pumping you full of fluids for the last couple days,” Teyla said as their eyes met. Rodney couldn’t even hide his delight at the sight of her and apparently it showed because Teyla’s eyes widened and she smiled brilliantly at him. 

“We are so glad to have you back, Rodney,” She leaned over and kissed his forehead. 

“Wha…,” he tried to croak out, but his throat was still apparently not quite right. 

“Here,” Teyla said as she brought a straw to his mouth, “Carson said to take small sips to start with. He said you were to dehydrated and your throat to torn up to do much more than water and broth for a bit.”

Teyla sounded apologetic, but Rodney quickly responded after three beautiful sips of water, “Water and broth sounds great.”

His voice cracked, but he felt sharper than he’d felt for at least three months, “How?” he rasped out. 

“We caught rumors a few months ago about a society that avoided extinction of the wraith by giving over their weak, when the daedulas came out they swung to this area to investigate and they picked up on the weak signal with the IDC code from when you were taken. The gate to the planet didn’t respond, so Caldwell swung over to the closest planet we could reach and we gated there to meet them,” John’s voice sounded as good as the water had. Rodney couldn’t help the slight shudder of relief that came over him.  
“We will come visit you later, Rodney, and give John and you some time together,” Teyla murmured and it wasn’t until that moment that Rodney even realized that Ronon was tucked in the corner of the small room. 

The large man grinned at him and Rodney shocked him by smiling back. 

Then the door was swinging shut and his eyes swung in time to John and suddenly he gulped in apprehension. He dimly remembered declaring his love with he thought that he was hallucinating on the planet. He really wanted to look away from John’s stare, but the man seemed to hold him trapped as he moved closer. Rodney was shocked when he realized John’s eyes were definitely wet and he felt his stomach clench in anticipation and fear as John carefully sat on the edge of the hospital bed without saying a word. 

Rodney was really starting to think he was paralyzed, but the moment John leaned in and brushed his lips against Rodney’s, the scientist felt like every molecule in his body was moving all at once and in complete tandem.

John pulled back slightly to lean their foreheads together, “I love you, too,” he whispered the words and Rodney felt his world finally right itself and he was no longer parched.


End file.
